Professor Suisheng Zhao will draw on his new book, The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy, for this talk. He traces the dramatic shifts in China’s foreign policy since its founding in 1949, focusing on the key roles played by Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Each of these transformational leaders reshaped foreign policy to better fit their aims for China. His presentation will focus on Xi Jinping’s power concentration and its implications for Chinese foreign policy.

Suisheng Zhao is professor and director of the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He’s the founding editor of the influential Journal of Contemporary China and the author and editor of ten books, including Power Competition in East Asia (1997), A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (2004), China-US Relations Transformed (2007), Debating Political Reform in China (2014), and Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior (2016).